It was Time for a Break

We're just home from a wonderful two week holiday where we did a loop of the South Island of New Zealand.  We traveled down the beautiful wild West Coast, passing through Nikau Forests in the sub tropical north.  We stopped at the pancake rocks at Punakaiki...

where the sea was disappointingly calm so the blowholes were quiet...

but the cheeky wekas were busily begging from the tourists...

This wee fellow almost got into the car!  There was a gang of three working the car park like rather hardened operators!

We stayed a night with family at Moana on beautiful Lake Brunner and went bushwalking there.  The peace and quality of stillness there is exquisite.

This collection of old English cars at Dobson is so typically old West Coast!  The Toy Boy is a bit of an old petrol head, so we had to have a "scenic" shot here!

The drive from Moana to Queenstown was long but very diverse and beautiful - from poor pasturelands and stony beaches, through dense rainforest, past the glaciers and into the dry, rocky interior.

The purpose of the trip was a visit with Number One Son and his partner MM.  They live on the shores of Lake Wakitipu in the very busy year round tourist town of Queenstown.  

It's quite a place, with the picturesque old town nestled on the side of the lake in amongst towering mountains.  We had a little flash of snow on the tops while we were there, but in a few weeks the whole town will be focussed on magnificent world-class skifields.  

Number One Son has always been a mad keen fisherman (check out queenstownfisher.com )

and he took us for a drive up the lake to Glenorchy and the Dart River.  We stopped off so he could have a quick fish, and lo and behold he caught a lovely brown trout!  There was great excitement as the fish was landed and safely returned to its home!

The Toy Boy and I bade a reluctant farewell to the kids and headed off towards Moeraki on the East Coast (the place where those beautiful boulders are born).

 

I love the look of the dry, brown-cloaked hills of the inland country.

Our road trip was topped off with a couple of nights at Hanmer Springs and a day soaking ourselves wrinkly in the hot pools, then quietly home.

It was a lovely break, and it's good to be home!

Hearts of Stone?

No, hearts of glass.  I've made some heart beads in the "Moeraki Stone" style lately, and have even made some tiny ones for earrings.

Yes, they're glass - lovely earthy colours, colours that change in the flame and combine with other colours to react and do something often unexpected.  It's one of the many things I love about working with glass!
The Moeraki Stone beads are inspired by the giant round bead-like rocks at Moeraki Beach on the East Coast of the South Island - it's a gorgeous place of big country where the sea meets the land and the sky and you can stand out on a tiny sheltered penninsula or "kaik" and look all around for miles.
Moeraki is on my mind lately.  I was given a book this week - Fleur Sullivan's autobiography.  Fleur is a restauranteur in her '70's, still working hard and inspirationally at what she does best - cooking original food and presenting it in new but traditional ways.  I know that sounds odd, but trust me, it's good!  She collects old household wares and food from the land and combines them in an original, authentic ways.
Since the problems with the website I've been able to upload lots more works and have been busily preparing for the summer, squirreling away good stocks so we can relax a little too.
I've just finished a set that I'm particularly pleased with Black Raku Spice Cubes with transparent gray - the black raku beads are lovely, but the addition of the transparent gray really brings the pieces to life!

My latest silver order has just arrived and I've been carefully weighing it all out and sorting it into my system - MAN!!! The price has skyrocketed!  I'm really afraid that I'm going to have to put my prices up soon - but I'll wait till the New Year.  The price is all related to the world mineral prices which have gone crazy since the recession.  Apparently people invest in gold, silver, copper etc during these times.  Let's hope that things come right financially in 2012 so the prices of materials goes back to normal!
Oh, and just because I haven't blogged in ages, I'll show you something else I've been working on...

I've found a way to combine these really reactive glass colours - Lime Green, Opaque Pink and Cranberry.  It's something I've been mulling over for ages, but when a friend came in looking for something to wear with a really pretty black top sprigged with pink and green I thought again and gave it a go.  This one is Extra Large Lime Green & Raspberry Flow Heart Pendant.